The whole thing was awful, Hardy thought. Simply awful.

And what made it worse, all but intolerable from his perspective, was that in spite of the lack of evidence he’d finally come to lose almost all of his belief that she was not actually guilty of both murders.

Certainly, he knew, she had done something she was unwilling, under pain of life in prison, to reveal.

Also, while her family and her outside world appeared to be imploding around her, as the weeks had passed, she seemed to have grown more and more acquiescent, and less concerned with her defense, as though she deserved whatever happened to her. She still professed a desire to be found innocent, but mostly because she thought the children needed her. She didn’t want them to have to live with the fact that their mother was in jail, convicted of murder. For herself, though, it didn’t seem that critical an issue.

Hardy stood and pulled out her chair as all the parties rose while another bailiff brought in the jury from their room farther back along the same corridor Hardy and Maya had just used to enter the courtroom. When all the jurors were seated, she sat and Hardy pushed her forward until she was comfortably up at the table. As he’d coached her, she cast a look over to the newly empaneled jury and nodded a few times, making as much eye contact as seemed natural.

It was, from his perspective, a decent jury. Nine men and three women. Five whites, four African-Americans, three Asians. All between forty and seventy, and Hardy guessed from various nuances that seven or eight of them had at least tried marijuana. Nine of them held full-time jobs. Two of the men and one woman were retired and had been moderately successful in business. Hardy was surprised that Stier hadn’t peremptorily dismissed any of these, but maybe he hadn’t factored the antidevelopment prejudice adequately into his jury-selection strategy.

Although sometimes, Hardy knew, you just got lucky.

The way things had been going, though, Hardy didn’t think that was it in this case.

But before Hardy had a chance to sit again, behind them the gallery energy shifted, and both Hardy and Maya turned around to see what had caused it.

“Well, look at this,” Hardy said, a small grin toying with the sides of his mouth as Kathy West, the mayor of San Francisco herself, came walking down the center aisle toward them, accompanied by her nephew Harlen Fisk and a small procession of both of their staff members. Beyond them flowed a steady stream of reporters, courtroom groupies, and the simply curious, such that by the time Kathy and Harlen got up to the front row and began moving in beside Joel, the gallery was standing room only and the buzz in the room was constant and formidable.

The bailiff, obviously at a loss as to what he should do, especially after Kathy West shook his hand, allowed the mayor to further ignore the rules and reach across the bar rail to shake hands with both Hardy and her niece, while Harlen pulled Hardy a little closer and whispered, “This is Kathy’s spur of the moment inspiration. Maybe put our friend Stier over there a bit off his feed for his opening statement.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Hardy said. The grandstanding, coming as it did after weeks of inactivity and silence from Maya’s extended family, was in fact far from unwelcome. A smile creased Hardy’s features and he glanced over in time to catch Stier, Glass, and Schiff in what were to him sweet expressions of disbelief and shock.

But the energy had no time to gather momentum as the door by the judge’s bench opened and the bailiff up there at the far end of the room intoned, “All rise. Department Twenty-five of the Superior Court of California is now in session, Judge Marian Braun presiding.”

And Braun swept in and up to her chair behind the bench, glanced out at the crowd, then glared as she became aware of her visitors. After a second’s hesitation she lifted and slammed her gavel and said, “Attorneys, my chambers, immediately!”

The judge, in her black robe, was standing waiting for both of them as they came in. She didn’t even ask the court recorder, Ann Baxter-sitting on the couch with her magic machine-if she was ready to take down every word that was said, as was required in a murder trial, before she started in. “Mr. Hardy. Because of our long history together, I thought I’d made clear that there wouldn’t be any show-boating in or around my courtroom. And now I come in here on the first actual day of trial and who do I see out in the first row but the mayor and one of our city supervisors, and if you think-”

“Your Honor,” Hardy said.

But she raised a hand. “I’m not finished talking yet, and I don’t want you interrupting me. Ever. Here or in the courtroom. Clear?”

It was unprofessional and might even be counterproductive in the short run for his client, but if Braun was going to insult him and act like a tyrant whose malice toward him might provide grounds for an eventual appeal, Hardy was going to be happy to help her along. So, knowing that decorum demanded that he respond aloud to her-otherwise the court recorder couldn’t put his answer in the record-he nodded with an exaggerated solemnity.

And waited.

It didn’t take Braun long. Her eyes went nearly shut as she squinted across at him. “I asked you a question, Mr. Hardy. I asked if it was clear that you were not to interrupt me.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure you’d finished and I didn’t want to interrupt.” Straight-faced.

She pointed a finger at him, schoolmarmish, her voice a hoarse and controlled rasp. “I’d like to know what you mean to accomplish by having the mayor and Supervisor Fisk sitting out there. This is exactly the kind of circus environment that I’ve cautioned you that I want to avoid, and here it is before we’ve even begun.”

Hardy stood at attention.

“Well? Are you going to answer me? Or not?”

Hardy canted his head slightly, leaning forward. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. I didn’t hear a question and didn’t know you required a response.”

“What are they doing out there?”

“I don’t know, Your Honor. Intending to take in the trial, or at least part of it?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t care to hazard a supposition.”

“I don’t believe you. I sense your hand in their presence here.”

“Your Honor, you flatter me to assign me such influence, but I assure you that I have no control over the movements of the mayor. Or Mr. Fisk. Their appearance here is as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”

“They are sitting on your client’s side. You don’t think this is going to influence the jury, seeing them sitting rooting for her?”

“I don’t know about that and I can’t help how the jury will react. Ms. West and Mr. Fisk are both related to the defendant.” He turned. “As Mr. Stier and, I believe, you, well know.”

Again the finger. “Don’t you presume to tell me what I know or don’t know.”

“Of course not, Your Honor. But regardless of your knowledge or lack of it, it’s only natural that as Ms. Townshend’s relatives, they should sit on the defense side of the gallery.”

Braun turned her angry eyes to the prosecutor. “Mr. Stier? Do you have anything to add to this conversation?”

The clean-cut and quite possibly cutthroat attorney, who had come in the door behind Hardy and remained slightly behind him until now, stepped up beside him, cleared his throat, but remained silent.

“Your Honor, with respect,” Hardy began, “first and primarily, this is a public courtroom. Anyone has a right to be here. We fought a revolution about this sort of thing. Further, there is an argument to be made that their presence might be calculated to combat the pre-trial prejudice that the prosecution has been abetting throughout the lead-up to this trial.”

“What are you talking about?” Stier snapped.